There’s nothing I’m afraid of like scared people.
–Robert Frost, A Hundred Collars
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I think those eight words above from the Robert Frost poem, A Hundred Collars, says it all for me at the moment. I don’t find myself filled with the fear of ISIS or terrorists in general. I certainly don’t fear that someone, a small child or a widow, who has entered themselves into a long and grueling process to come here will one day attack me.
No, I am more afraid of the panic of scared people who throw calm thought and rationality out the window. People who allow the fear raised by others to dictate their response. People who react in a knee-jerk manner that does nothing to alleviate their fears and sometimes does harm to themselves and others around them. People who fear the darkness and shoot blindly into it.
Don’t get me wrong– it’s a scary moment in time. It deserves our full attention, cautious observation and appropriate response. But to react in a reactionary manner that alters our identity, the makeup of who we are as a people, is to fall prey to the will of the terrorists.
So, while you may have fears, be careful and be calm. Breath. Think. Know the world around you and try to let those fears go for a time.
I think that last short paragraph applies to the piece at the top, a new painting, 3.5″ by 5.5″ on paper, that I am calling Unafraid.
Redtree Times 